BUMP Amidst Safety Concerns

by Cedric Lundy, Middle School Pastor since 2006 and three-peat BUMP Baltimore participant, Church at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC     

After being on the bus for no more than twenty minutes, we pulled over to the side of the street and began unloading onto the sidewalk. This was the neighborhood where we would be doing a prayer walk and cleanup, while our guide and ministry partner for the afternoon told us about the social dynamics of the area. The neighborhood we were in was a low-income, working class part of the city of Baltimore. The fact that we were in a neighborhood vastly different than the comfort of south Charlotte was not lost on my students. Most of them had never been this close to poverty in their life.

Poverty wasn’t the biggest feature of the neighborhood to stand out. Directly across the street from where we were dropped off as the bus found a place to park was Pimlico Race Course, Home of The Preakness. Here we are doing a prayer walk and picking up trash in a poverty stricken neighborhood and directly across the street, a stones throw away, is the second leg of The Triple Crown of horse racing.

We eventually began making our way down the sidewalk on this main avenue lined with storefronts. I can still vividly picture the looks on the faces of the people, all of which were African-American, in the barber shop and hair salon watching in utter amazement at this group of thirty middle school kids (only three of which were black) as we strolled through their neighborhood. Finally one tall man having stopped dead in his tracks coming out of a convenience store asked the obvious question, “You all aren’t from around here. What are you doing here?” One of the students answered just as we had instructed them, “We’re a church youth group from Charlotte, North Carolina and we’ve come for a week long mission trip to love on the city of Baltimore.” His response was quick and authoritative, “God bless you kids, that you’d come all this way to love on Baltimore, when you could be home playing video games or at summer camp.”

That was the overwhelming response we received that day, including when we went to a back lot parking lot known for being a local hang out for everyday people to get drunk and/or high. Under the curious gaze of onlookers, we picked up trash and prayed. Even in the midst of whatever haze they were under from the alcohol or drugs the people back there self-medicating their inner pain inquired of our purpose and why we were back there. I will never forget these individuals, not all but most, upon discovering who we are and why we were there, asking to be prayed for, joining us in prayer, praying for our kids, and strongly admonishing them to stay away from the poisons they had given their life over to. It was powerful moment for two reasons: love and feet on the ground to be the good news made our students more than safe from harm. It made them honored and welcomed ambassadors of peace and healing. Secondly, it softened the hearts of the students to see people despite their circumstances and choices as human beings.

It’s been four years since that experience - our first BUMP mission trip to Baltimore. We are scheduled to go a third time this summer. You’d have to be living under a rock to not have clue what has happened in Baltimore over the past three weeks. Admittedly, I was under said rock up until the day before the rioting and looting occurred on April 20^th. I had been at a conference, the last half of the previous week and weekend. Back at my church in time for Sunday services, I had two parents of students signed up for BUMP approach me wanting assurances regarding safety, and this was before the tension in Baltimore had crescendo into citizens throwing rocks at law enforcement officers and fires being lit in the streets.

In the weeks since, things have calmed down some. Yet, questions of safety remain and rightfully so.  If you are reading this you are likely a parent or youth worker with these concerns not only for Baltimore, for other BUMP trips to urban centers of our country. The reality is many of the cities BUMP trips are scheduled for sit on a knife’s edge. One event could light the decade’s full powder keg of social injustice, poverty and economic inequality—and the list goes on—leading to more images that give cause for concern.

           Since the events in Ferguson much of the church has responded by talking about the realities of white privilege. I’m not convinced those conversations have been productive. It has led to sharp disagreement on the social dynamics at play in our urban centers and culpability of whites and other outsiders. It has shifted the focus off the real complaint of whom urban communities are at odds with. They are not at odds with white people in general but rather with the tactics of police and law enforcement agencies regardless of their skin color. 

          Mostly it is unproductive because it isn’t leading to the church doing the very things that BUMP is designed to do: make a bridge to urban areas of our nation with the gospel-filled mission of healing and loving the marginalized. Healing happens when the privileges some Christ Followers enjoy become the vehicle taking them into hurting communities to love and serve. 

         I could list some very practical reasons why I believe our students serving on all BUMP trips will be safe, but instead I’ll keep it simple and true. Few, if anyone, will want to hurt them because they will be too blown away and amazed that a bunch of teenagers from hundreds of miles away came to love on their city and the people who call it home.